Chapter 13: Personality

personality

A person’s characteristic thoughts, emotional responses, and behaviors.

personality trait

A pattern of thought, emotion, and behavior that is relatively consistent over time and across situations.

temperaments

Biologically based tendencies to feel/act in certain ways. Broader than personality traits. Innate biological structures. 3 characteristics considered: 1) activity level, 2) emotionality, and 3) sociability

trait approaches

Approaches to studying personality that focus on how individuals differ in personality dispositions.

five-factor theory

The idea that personality can be described using five factors: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

neuroticism

How emotional someone is; frequent and dramatic mood swings; anxious, moody, and depressed, and hold very low opinions of themselves.

behavioral approach system (BAS)

The brain system involved in the pursuit of incentives or rewards (the “go” system).

Behavioral inhibition system (BIS)

The brain system that monitors for threats in the environment and therefore slows or inhibits behavior in order to be vigilant for danger or pain (the “slow down” system).

fight-flight-freeze system (FFFS)

The brain system that responds to punishment by directing an organism to freeze, run away, or engage in defensive fighting.

Humanistic approach

Approaches to studying personality that emphasize how people fulfill their potential through greater self-understanding

genetic factors

Genetic makeup may predispose certain characteristics, but whether these traits are expressed depends on circumstances.

twin studies

Genetic influence accounts for ~40-60% of varience between all individuals for all personality traits. Also true for attitudes influenced by traits.

freudian slips

Unconscious forces motivations revealed through misspeaking

defense mechanisms

Conflict between the ID and superego causes anxiety. Ego copes with anxiety through _____.

Projection

Attributing your own unacceptable feelings to others (ex: Accusing someone of being angry when you are the one angry)

Denial

Refusing to accept reality (ex: saying “This isn’t real.” or “This can’t be happening.”)

Repression

Unconsciously blocking distressing thoughts or memories (ex: not remembering a traumatic event)

Suppression

Consciously pushing thoughts aside (ex: “I’ll think about this later.”)

Displacement

Redirecting emotions to a safer target (ex: Yelling at a partner after a bad day at work.)

Rationalization

Making logical excuses for emotional behavior (ex: “I failed because the test was unfair.”)

Reaction Formation

Acting opposite to true feelings (ex: Being overly nice to someone you dislike.)

Oral stage

Pleasure seeking through the mouth (like weaning). Examples of being stuck in this stage are smoking, nail-biting, or overeating.

An*l stage

Emphasis shifts to the pleasure associated with the anus (like toilet training). Examples of being stuck in this stage are retentive (overly neat, rigid, perfectionistic) or expulsive (messy, careless, defiant).

Phallic stage

Child shows increased interest in pleasure from genital stimulation (like the Oedipus complex or Electra complex). Examples of being stuck in this stage are problems with authority, vanity, recklessness, or sexual anxiety.

Latency stage

Libido goes dormant—channeled into school and friends. Freud didn’t emphasize a fixation in this stage.

Genital stage

Mature attitudes about sexuality and focused energy on reproduction. If there are earlier fixations, difficulties with intimacy or relationships may occur.

Oedipus complex

unconcious desire to sexually love your mother (Electra complex is the same but for father)

Psychodynamic theory

Unconscious forces (wishes, desires, hidden memories) determine behavior. Introduce the ID (unconscious thoughts that are unacceptable in society and animalistic), superego (not in conscious awareness but easily retrieved and associated with moral standards), and ego (the concious awareness that mediates between the superego and ID).

Learning and Cognition Theory

Introduced by B.F Skinner and other behaviorists who thought personality was a result of learned responses to patterns of reinforcement. Strict behaviorism was not sufficient, so psychologists added the Cognitive theory, emphasizing a person’s expectancies for reinforcement and values personal attitudes to specific reinforcers

Social Cognitive Theory

Introduced by Bandura, said three things interact to produce behavior: environment, personal factors (like characteristics, self-confidence, and expectations), and behavior itself.

locus of control

People’s personal beliefs about how much control they have over the outcomes in their lives.

internal locus of control

Believe they bring about their own rewards

external locus of control

Believe rewards (and therefore their fate) result from forces beyond their control

reciprocal determinism

The theory that the expression of personality can be explained by the interaction of enviornment, personal factors, and behavior itself.

need for cognition

The tendency to engage in and enjoy thinking about difficult questions or problems. People high in this might enjoy puzzles and difficult tasks.

situationism

The theory that behavior is determined more by situations than by personality traits (ex: studies where people who were dishonest in one situation were honest in another)

cognitive affective processing system

People react in predictable ways to specific conditions

Strong situations

Situations where people tend to mask differences in personality because of power of environment (ex: airplanes, interviews).

Weak situations

Situations where people tend to reveal differences in personality (ex: parks, bars)

interactionism

The theory that behavior is determined jointly by situations and underlying dispositions.

idiographic approaches

Person-centered approaches to assessing personality that focus on individual lives and how various characteristics are integrated into unique people.

projective measures

Personality tests that examine tendencies to respond in a particular way by having people interpret ambiguous stimuli. (ex: Rorschach inkblot test)

Trait Approach

The most modern personality psychologists focus on traits, focuses on how individuals differ in personality dispositions, descriptive but not explanatory, rooted in temperament, 1000+ terms

Biological trait theory

X axis goes from introversion to extraversion; y axis goes from unstable to stable.

self-concept

A web of information that you know and believe about yourself. What you believe about yourself guides your behavior in a given context.

self-schema

A knowledge structure that contains memories, beliefs, and generalizations about the self and that helps people efficiently perceive, organize, interpret, and use information related to themselves.

self-esteem

The evaluative aspect of the self-concept in which people feel worthy or unworthy. Derived from their beleifs abo

sociometer

An internal monitor of social acceptance or rejection

social comparison

The tendency for people to evaluate their own actions, abilities, and beliefs by contrasting them with other people’s

downward comparison

Contrasting yourself with someone worse (feels good but little information)

upward comparison

Contrasting yourself with someone better (feels bad, but provides information).

self-serving bias

The tendency for people to take personal credit for successes but blame failure on external factors.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

31 cards: 30 show people, objects, and landscapes; 1 blank. The client is asked to tell a story about it, including what led to the scene, what his happening in the present, and what will happen.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

Developed by gathering 1000+ questions from older personality tests, sources, and administering to thousands of psychiatric patients and non-patients. 566 true-false questions, Validity scales: F scale - high score suggests faking bad; L scale - high score suggests faking good; K scale - more subtle scale to measure faking good/bad.

Myers-Briggs

125 forced choice questions, can skip questions, 5-point difference necessary for clear preference. 16 types based on: 1) extraversion/introversion, 2) sensation/intuition, 3) thinking/feeling, 4) judging/perceiving

better-than-average effect

Most people describe themselves as better than average in nearly every way.

inferiority complex

persistent feeling of inadequacy, insecurity, or low self-worth, where a person believes they are less capable or inferior to others

Centrality of trait

more consistent in their primary traits (core traits that show up across situations like extraversion, emotional stability, and conscientiousness) than in their secondary traits (weaker and is less likely to be consistent across situations like attitudes, preferences, and habits)

Nomothetic approaches

More general and emphasizes measurement, comparison, and statistics. Examples include: OCEAN and Eysenck’s PEN model. These tests use standardized test questionnaires.